An Autumn War (The Long Price Quartet)

by Daniel Abraham

  “Something’s happened,” Balasar said. “Something’s happened to one of yours.”

  “Sir,” the boy said.

  Balasar took a regretful look at the chicken, then rose to his feet.

  “Take me to Captain Ajutani,” Balasar said.

  Their path ended at the medical tent. The messenger waited outside when Balasar ducked through the flap and entered. The thick canvas reeked with concentrated vinegar and pine pitch. The medic stood over a low cot where a man lay naked and bloody. One of Sinja’s men. The captain himself stood against the tent’s center pole, arms folded. Balasar stepped forward, taking in the patient’s wounds with a practiced eye. Two parallel cuts on the ribs, shallow but long. Cuts on the hands and arms where the boy had tried to ward off the blades. Skinned knuckles where he’d struck out at someone. Balasar caught the medic’s eye and nodded to the man.

  “No broken bones, sir,” the medic said. “One finger needed sewing, and there’ll be scars, but so long as we keep the wounds from festering, he should be fine.”

  “What happened?” Balasar asked.

  “I found him by the river,” Sinja said. “I brought him here.”

  Balasar heard the coolness in Sinja’s voice, judged the tension in his face and shoulders. He steeled himself.

  “Come, then,” Balasar said as he lifted open the tent’s wide flap, “eat with me and you can tell me what happened.”

  “No need, General. It’s a short enough story. Coya here can’t speak Galtic. There’s been footmen from the fourth legion following him for days now. At first it was just mocking, and I didn’t think it worth concern.”

  “You have names? Proof that they did this?”

  “They’re bragging about it, sir,” Sinja said.

  Sinja looked down at the wounded man. The boy looked up at him. The dark eyes were calm, perhaps defiant. Balasar sighed and knelt beside the low cot.

  “Coya-cha?” he said in the boy’s own language. “I want you to rest. I’ll see the men who did this disciplined.”

  The wounded hands took a pose that declined the offer.

  “It isn’t a favor to you,” Balasar said. “My men don’t treat one another this way. As long as you march with me, you are my soldier, whatever tongues you speak. I’ll be sure they understand it’s my wrath they’re feeling, and not yours.”

  “Your dead men are the problem, sir,” Sinja said, switching the conversation back to Galtic.

  The medic coughed once, then discreetly stepped to the far side of the tent. Balasar folded his hands and nodded to Sinja that he should continue. The mercenary sucked his teeth and spat.

  “Your men are angry. Having those shrouds along is like putting a burr under their saddles. They’re calling my men things they didn’t when this campaign began. And they act as if it were harmless and in fun, but it isn’t.”

  “I’ll see your men aren’t attacked again, Sinja. You have my word on it.”

  “It’s not just that, sir. You’re sowing anger. Yes, it keeps them traveling faster, and I respect that. But once we reach Udun and Utani, they’re going to have their blood up. It’s easier for ten thousand soldiers to defeat a hundred thousand tradesmen if the tradesmen don’t think defeat means being beaten to death for sport. And a bad sack can burn in resentments that last for lifetimes. All respect, those cities are as good as taken, and we both know it. There’s no call to make this worse than it has to be.”

  “I should be careful?” Balasar said. “Move slowly, and let the cities fall gently?”

  “You said before you wanted this done clean.”

  “Yes. Before. I said that before.”

  “They’re going to be your cities,” Sinja said doggedly as a man swimming against the tide. “There’s more to think about than how to capture them. It’s my guess Galt’s going to be ruling these places for a long time. The less the people have to forget, the easier that rule’s going to be.”

  “I don’t care about holding them,” Balasar said. “There are too many to guard, and once the rest of the world scents blood, it’s going to be chaos anyway. This war isn’t about finding ways for the High Council to appoint more mayors.”

  “Sir?”

  “We are carrying the dead because they are my dead.” Balasar kept his voice calm, his manner matter-of-fact. The trembling in his hands was too slight to be seen. “And I haven’t come to conquer the Khaiem, Captain Ajutani. I’ve come to destroy them.”

  THE FIRST refugees appeared when Otah’s little army was still three days’ march from the village of the Dai-kvo. They were few and scattered in the morning, and then more and larger groups toward the day’s end. The stories they told Otah were the same. Ships had come to Yalakeht—warships loaded heavy with Galtic soldiers. Some of the ships were merchant vessels that had been on trade runs to Chaburi-Tan. Others were unfamiliar. The harbor master had tried to refuse them berths, but a force of men had come from the warehouse district and taken control of the seafront. By the time the Khai had gathered a force to drive them back, it was too late. Yalakeht had fallen. Any hope that Otah’s army might be on a fool’s errand ended with that news.

  In the night, more men came, drawn by the light and scent of the army’s cook fires. Otah saw that they were welcomed, and the tale grew. Boats had been waiting, half assembled, in the warehouses of Galtic merchants in Yalakeht. Great metal boilers ran paddle wheels, and pushed their wide, shallow boats upriver faster than oxen could pull. Boats loaded with men and steam wagons. The low towns nearest Yalakeht had been overrun. Another force had been following along the shore, hauling food and supplies. The soldiers themselves had sped for the Dai-kvo. Just as Otah had feared they would.

  Otah sat in his tent and listened to the cicadas. They sang as if nothing was changing. As if the world was as it had always been. A breeze blew from the south, heavy with the smell of rain though the clouds were still few and distant. Trees nodded their branches to one another. Otah kept his back to the fire and stared out at darkness.

  There was no way to know whether the Galtic army had reached the village yet. Perhaps the Dai-kvo was preparing some defense, perhaps the village had been encircled and overrun. From the tales he’d heard, once the Galts and their steam wagons reached the good roads leading from the river to the village itself, they would be able to travel faster than news of them.

  It had been almost thirty years ago when Otah had traveled up that river carrying a message from Saraykeht. The memory of it was like something from a dream. There had been an older man—younger, likely, than Otah was now—who had run the boat with his daughter. They had never spoken of the girl’s mother, and Otah had never asked. That child daughter would be a woman now, likely with children of her own. Otah wondered what had become of her, wondered whether that half-recalled river girl was among those flying out of the storm into which he was heading, or if she had been in one of the towns that the army had destroyed.

  A polite scratch came at the door, his servant announcing himself. Otah called out his permission, and the door opened. He could see the silhouettes of Ashua Radaani and his other captains looming behind the servant boy’s formal pose.

  “Bring them in,” Otah said. “And bring us wine. Wait. Watered wine.”

  The six men lumbered in. Otah welcomed them all with formal gravity. The fine hunting robes in which they had come out from Machi had been scraped clean of mud. The stubble had been shaved from their chins. From these small signs and from the tightness in their bodies, Otah knew they had all drawn the same conclusions he had. He stood while they folded themselves down to the cushion-strewn floor. Then, silently, Otah sat on his chair, looking down at these grown men, heads of their houses who through the years he had known them had been flushed with pride and self-assurance. The servant boy poured them each a bowl of equal parts wine and fresh water before ghosting silently out the door. Otah took a pose that opened the audience.

  “We will be meeting the Galts sometime in the next several days,�
�� Otah said. “I can’t say where or when, but it will be soon. And when the time comes, we won’t have time to plan our strategy. We have to do that now. Tonight. You have all brought your census?”

  Each man in turn took a scroll from his sleeve and laid it before him. The number of men, the weapons and armor, the horses and the bows and the numbers of arrows and bolts. The final tally of the strength they had managed. Otah looked down at the scrawled ink and hoped it would be enough.

  “Very well,” he said. “Let’s begin.”

  None of them had ever been called upon to plan a battle before, but each had an area of expertise. Where one knew of the tactics of hunting, another had had trade relations with the Wardens of the Westlands enough to speak of their habits and insights. Slowly they made their plans: What to do when the scouts first brought news of the Galts. Who should command the wedges of archers and crossbowmen, who the footmen, who the horsemen. How they should protect their flanks, how to pull back the archers when the time came near for the others to engage. Their fingers sketched lines and movements on the floor, their voices rose, became heated, and grew calm again. The moon had traveled the width of six hands together before Otah declared the work finished. Orders were written, shifting men to different commands, specifying the shouted signals that would coordinate the battle, putting the next few uncertain days into the order they imagined for them. When the captains bowed and took their poses of farewell, the clouds had appeared and the first ticking raindrops were striking the canvas. Otah lay on his cot wrapped in blankets of soft wool, listening to the rain, and running through all that they had said. If it worked as they had planned, perhaps all would be well. In the darkness with his belly full of wine and his mind full of the confident words of his men, he could almost think there was hope.

  Dawn was a brightening of clouds, east as gray as west. They struck camp, loaded their wagons, and once again made for the Dai-kvo. The flow of refugees seemed to have stopped. No new faces appeared before them—no horses, no men on foot. Perhaps the rain and mud had stopped them. Perhaps something else. Otah rode near the vanguard, the scouts arriving, riding for a time at his side, and then departing again. It was midmorning and the sun was still hidden behind the low gray ceiling of the world when Nayiit rode up on a thin, skittish horse. Otah motioned him to ride near to his side.

  “I’m told I’m to be a messenger,” Nayiit said. There was a controlled anger in his voice. “I’ve drilled with the footmen. I have a sword.”

  “You have a horse too.”

  “It was given to me with the news,” Nayiit said. “Have I done something to displease you, Most High?”

  “Of course not,” Otah said. “Why would you think you had?”

  “Why am I not permitted to fight?”

  Otah leaned back, and his mount, reading the shift of his weight, slowed. His back ached and the raw places on his thighs were only half healed. The rain had soaked his robes, so that even the oiled cloth against his skin felt clammy and cold. The rain that pressed Nayiit’s hair close against his neck also tapped against Otah’s squinting eyes.

  “How are you not permitted to fight?” Otah said.

  “The men who are making the charge,” Nayiit said. “The men I’ve been traveling with. That I’ve trained with. I want to be with them when the time comes.”

  “And I want you to be with me, and with them,” Otah said. “I want you to be the bridge between us.”

  “I would prefer not to,” Nayiit said.

  “I understand that. But it’s what I’ve decided.”

  Nayiit’s nostrils flared, and his cheeks pinked. Otah took a pose that thanked the boy and dismissed him. Nayiit wheeled his mount and rode away, kicking up mud as he did. In the distance, the meadows began to rise. They were coming to the Dai-kvo from the north and west, up the long, gentle slope of the mountains rather than the cliffs and crags from which the village was carved. Otah had never come this way before. For all his discomfort and the dread in his belly, this gray-green world was lovely. He tried not to think of Nayiit or of the men whom his boy had asked permission to die with. We are his fathers, Maati had said, and Otah had agreed. He wondered if the others would also see Nayiit’s duty as a protection of him. He wondered if they would guess that Danat wasn’t his only son. He hoped that they would all live long enough for such problems to matter.

  The scout came just before midday. He’d seen a rider in Galtic colors. He’d been seen as well. Otah accepted the information and set the couriers to ride closer and in teams. He felt his belly tighten and wondered how far from its main force the Galts would send their riders. That was the distance between him and his first battle. His first war.

  It was near evening when the two armies found each other. The scouts had given warning, and still, as Otah topped the rise, the sight of them was astounding. The army of Galt stood still at the far end of the long, shallow valley, silent as ghosts in the gray rain. Their banners should have been green and gold, but in the wet and with the distance, they seemed merely black. Otah paused, trying to guess how many men faced him. Perhaps half again his own. Perhaps a little less. And they were here, waiting for him. The Dai-kvo’s village was behind them.

  He wondered if he had come too late. Perhaps the Galts had sacked the village and slaughtered the Dai-kvo. Perhaps they had had word of Otah’s coming and bypassed the prize to reach him here, before his men could take cover in the buildings and palaces of mountain. Perhaps the Galts had divided, and the men facing him were what he had spared the Dai-kvo. There was no way to know the situation, and only one course available to him, whatever the truth.

  “Call the formation,” Otah said, and the shouts and calls flowed out behind him, the slap of leather and metal. The army of Machi took its place—archers and footmen and horsemen. All exhausted by their day’s ride, all facing a real enemy for the first time. From across the valley, a sound came, sharp as cracking thunder—thousands of voices raised as one. And then, just as suddenly, silence. Otah ran his hand over the thick leather straps of the reins and forced himself to think.

  In the soft quarter of Saraykeht, Otah had seen showfighters pout and preen before the blows came. He had seen them flex their muscles and beat their own faces until there was blood on their lips. It had been a show for the men and women who had come to partake of brutality as entertainment, but it had also been the start of the fight. A display to unnerve the enemy, to sow fear. This was no different. A thousand men who could speak in one voice could fight as one. They were not men, they were a swarm; a single mind with thousands of bodies. Hear us, the wordless cry had said, and die.

  Otah looked at the darkening sky, the misty rain. He thought of all the histories he had read, the accounts of battles lost and won in ancient days before the poets and their andat. Of the struggles in the low cities of the world. He raised his hands, and the messengers, Nayiit among them, came to his side.

  “Tell the men to make camp,” he said.

  The silence was utter.

  “Most High?” Nayiit said.

  “They won’t begin a battle now that they’d have to finish in darkness. This is all show and bluster. Tell the men to set their tents and build what cook fires we can in all this wet. Put them here where those bastards can see the light of them. Tell the men to rest and eat and drink, and we’ll set up a pavilion and have songs before we sleep. Let the Galts see how frightened we are.”

  The messengers took poses that accepted the order and turned their mounts. Otah caught Nayiit’s gaze, and the boy hesitated. When the others had gone, Otah spoke again.

  “Also find the scouts and have them set a watch. In case I’m wrong.”

  He saw Nayiit draw breath, but he only took the accepting pose and rode away.

  The night was long and unpleasant. The rain had stopped; the clouds thinned and vanished, letting the heat of the ground fly out into the cold, uncaring sky. Otah passed among the fires, accepting the oaths and salutes of his men. He felt his title
and dignity on his shoulders like a cloak. He would have liked to smile and be charming, to ease his fears with companionship and wine, just as his men did. It would have been no favor to them, though, so he held back and played the Khai for another night. No attack came, and between the half candle and the three-quarter mark, Otah actually fell asleep. He dreamed of nothing in particular—a bird that flew upside down, a river he recalled from childhood, Danat’s voice in an adjacent room singing words Otah could not later recall. He woke in darkness to the scent of frying pork and the sound of voices.

  He pulled on his robes and boots and stepped out into the chill of the morning. The cook fires were lit again or had never been put out. And across the valley, the Galt army had lit its own, glittering like orange and yellow stars fallen to earth. His attendant rushed up, blinking sleep from his eyes.

  “Most High,” the boy said, falling into a pose of abject apology. “I had thought to let you sleep. Your breakfast is nearly ready—”

  “Bring it to my tent,” Otah said. “I’ll be back for it.”

  He walked to the edge of the camp where the firelight would not spoil his night vision and looked out into the darkness. In the east, the sky had become a paler blackness, the deep gray of charcoal. The stars had not gone out, but they were dimmed. In the trees that lined the valley, birds were beginning their songs. A strange tense peace came over him. His disquiet seemed to fade, and the dawn, gray then cool yellow and rose and serene blue that filled the wide bowl of the sky above him, was beautiful and calm. Whatever happened here in this valley, the sun would rise upon it again tomorrow. The birds would call to one another. Summer would retreat, autumn would come. The lives of men and nations were not the highest stakes to play for. He pulled his hands into his sleeves and turned back to the camp. At his tent, his messengers awaited him, including Nayiit.

  “Call the formation,” Otah said. “It’s time.”

  The messengers scattered, and it seemed fewer than a dozen breaths before the air was filled with the sounds of metal against metal, shouts and commands as his army pulled itself to the ready.